how much land

[mamabird]

Does anyone know how many acres I would need to grow my own feed for some chickens, a couple of sheep, a hog and a cow? Would that be possible or would I be better off buying the feed at a store? Trying to get an idea before we go shopping for land.

[homesteadmamma]

Reader's Digest has a wonderful book out titled Back to Basics which you can usually pick up at any local library. In that book, it tells you exactly how much land you would need both for keeping animals and how much land you would need to raise your own feed. This is one of the absolute BEST books to help you with that.

I don't have that book here. I do have the book Storey's Basic Country Skills by John and Martha Storey and here is what they say:

Generally, it is a mistake to buy too much land. For one thing, land requires maintenance and use or it grows up with weeds, brush or small trees. For another, land costs money and carries annual tax assessments. Its impossible to specify how large a homestead should be, but most people would not need more than a few acres, perhaps 15 at the outside. You can have a lovely and farily self-sufficient homestead on five acres, if it is good land. If you want to heat with wood, an additional five-acre woodlot will save you money, and it may be priced lower than your open homestead land.
-from The Complete Homesteading Book by David Robinson

Also you would want to look at the cost of machinery in order to make your land & feed productive.

I would also suggest that you talk to farmers around the area that you might be looking at. They can tell you if the land is productive, what their costs were and what the approximate costs would be in order to keep and feed the animals you are desiring to keep.


HTH

[mamabird]

Thanks homesteadmamma I'll have to check out that book.